A blog about living in New Jersey, trying to write fiction, taking pictures, watching bad reality TV, and obsessing about other people's dogs.

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Downton Abbey Awaits

I don't have much time here, people, because DA--the show for people who like antique pocket watches and leather valises, and fat white labs running across green lawns, and lovely dresses with delicate collars and beadwork, and candlesticks, and dastardely footmen vying against holier than thou butlers--shall be on in 16 minutes. However, I don't like an entire week to go by without at least geting something written in the blog, lest you stop checking it.

Have been reading lots of drafts of short stories in both the class I teach and the class I take, and the levels of skill are astonishing--ranging from people who seem to have a good command of the story, to those who have had very little practice writing short stories. Just this afternoon, I read a piece for the class I'm taking that was heavy with images that were unintentionally funny; comparisons being made between chest hair and ants, just as an example (something like: "his hair was stiff and short like ants marching up a hill." It's usually a mistake to compare essentially inanimate objects with really animate ones. Otherwise, the reader might start to wonder if maybe the chest hair is falling off and then perhaps carrying other pieces of chest hair with it back to some hill somewhere to see the Queen). I think in the case of the story I read today, the writer is more of a poet than a short story writer. I am so scared that I'm going to be a terrible poet, going to make amateur mistakes. I always, always, always want to be the best in the class, regardless of what the genre is.